Category: Blog

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Dual booting 2019 Macbook pro 16 linux – don’t do it! PART 1

I’ve been using linux as my main os for about eight years now. Before converting I was a life-long Windows user. I might reveal my age but my first windows was Windows 95 and I’ve used every Windows os. I’ve learnt to live with Windows quirks and shortcomings but with Windows 10 telematry & spying I’ve made the jump to Linux.

Linux as an os is great and fast but with a plenty of caveats. When everything works it is great and smooth but only when it works. I think Linux will never be os for everyone. There are just so many small things that you have to search online answers and command. If you go Linux you just have to take that side of things as well. But it makes you feel like a hacker when you get things to work and the workflow in Linux is lightning fast when you get everything set up. I’ve tried many distros and for now I’ve settled on Manjaro. Printers and software and gaming works with my computers better with Manjaro than other distros. Only thing that has been an issue is scaling and that problem grows bigger when switching between laptop mode and desktop but that’s Linux.   

My main computer is Dell xps 9310 (2020) with good enough specs for me. I buy my electronics usually second hand and this Dell xps is off Ebay for a reasonable price (about 600 ╒ in early 2023). It is a great little machine and light-weight. It works great with Linux and thunderbolt docks. My unit was beaten up quite a bit. I replaced the battery and bought new old stock back cover plate and put a Dbrand skin (not sponsored but taking offers if Dbrand is interested) on top cover.

A big me problem is that I live in Europe so when buying laptops I need a ISO layout and preferably a Nordic keyboard layout. So everything in US is off limits and missing keys that I need and customs are huge even if the asking price is usually lower . That means that selection is scarse and pricey in Ebay. I buy usually laptops with German keyboard layout which is a good enough. I touchtype so weird places for Z and Y (and umlaut U looks close enough to Å) is not a big deal when you can change the language in os.

Dell XPS works great when traveling and with thunderbolt dock as a desktop replacement. I game with Steam Deck and with Playstation(s) so I hadn’t had gaming pc forever. A big screen and proper keyboard (or many keyboards which is a post on its own) is still a must for any serious work or fun. Only problem with my XPS is one of its strengths and that is it is a small ultrabook. The screen is 16:10 and it has enough screen real estate for most things but if you want to use it on a couch and in your lap like a laptop and want to have the feel of a desktop it isn’t that device.

As of any other pc user I’ve felt envy for Apple users and their sleek laptops and their outstanding battery life. So I started to look for and research for Macbook with 16 gb and big screen and option to dual boot Linux. Problem with Linux is Apple’s own chips. Asahi linux has come a long way and now everything is starting to work now with Linux and with Apple silicon chips. But one big thing is that thunderbolt dock support is still a lacking feature. So that meant that if I wanted to dual boot Linux and I like to use bare metal when that is possible, the way forward was Macbook with an Intel processor.

Last Macbook pros with an Intel processor were made 2019-2020. So I started to scan Ebay for those. In the summer this year I finally found one with 16 gb memory and 512 gb ssd and 16 inch screen for a good price. As usual it was from Germany so with a German keyboard layout but that’s normal for me. So that was my new device.

I have briefly tested living the Apple life with a Macbook pro 2015 but I never got used to os. With this new device I gave Mac os a second chance. But it wasn’t meant to be. Privacy point view wise Mac os isn’t any better than Windows so that was a worry for me. But a bigger issue was that I couldn’t get the apps I wanted to use and run to work in Mac os or I couldn’t find an alternative. Living FOSS way of life meant that like hell I would pay for my programs. So I started to seek a way to install Linux bare metal to dual boot.

But then came the issues with T2 security chips and part two is all about that adventure.     

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Yakuza/Like a Dragon game tier list

So I just played through Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. Yakuza game series is with Mario Games my main game series that I love to play. I haven’t played all of them but quite a few. So after completing this little side adventure I started to think what Yakuza game is my favorite and in what order. Not a tier list per se because all these games are in S tier and just in text but this is my list of my favorite Yakuza games that I’ve played through:

8. Yakuza 4

7. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name

6. Like a Dragon: Ishin!

5. Yakuza 5 

4. Yakuza Kiwami 2

3. Lost Judgment

2. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

1. Yakuza 0

Yakuza 0 was my first Yakuza game and it will be the greatest experience always. I don’t know which game I will pick up next. The choices are the latest one or Judgment. I’m kind iffy about the turn-based rpg fighting style because the fast pace fighting is why I like these games but maybe I give it a chance.

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Sony Walkman Odyssey

My oldest Walkman with the latest one.

I’ve had Walkmans for a long time. The place I listen music is on the go and it has always been that way. In the picture is my own Sony Walkman cassette player WM-FX251 and that device was a godsend when I was a kid. I could listen music what I wanted and as loud as I wanted and nobody knew what I was listening. I could be in my own space and alone in it with the soundtrack I wanted to bring with me. And portable audio has been with me since.

I had a CD version of Walkman but that has disappeared in all these years. It was my go to device when cd came but it was a flimsy device. It had stabilizer so it didn’t skip when you moved around. If I remember correctly it broke eventually.

Then came mp3s.

I had cheap mp3 players which were size of usb stick and contain about 1 giga if lucky. I wasn’t all that pleased with any of them. I loved the portability but using those wasn’t fun. Eventually I got Ipod Nano 4th gen and that became my go to music device for many years. And that could be it’s own story some day. The thinness and lightweight and using the scroll wheel felt futuristic at that time and in a way feel futuristic today.

Then I started to listen music on my phone like a normal person but I always wanted to just listen music and podcasts and not be interrupted by notifications or calls. So I started to look for a modern mp3 player. I started to look for what Sony was doing. My first real mp3 player was Sony Walkman NW-A45 and that thing became my go to music device for many years. It could fit all my 200 gigabytes music in SD card quite easy. It run its own linux version without any wifi. It had bluetooth. And the battery life was spectacular.

But moving files with usb from computer felt kind a slow in these modern times we are living. It had no memory what I was listening so using podcasts or audio books wasn’t great. I upgraded to Sony Walkman NW-A105 because I wanted more a phone like features without the phone. And that device was a bust. It had horrendous battery life and it bricked after a couple of months.

Finally I arrived to my current device – Sony Walkman NW-A305. Finally I got the mp3 player I have dreamed of. It has all the best features of modern smart phone (support for streaming and podcasts) and tactile buttons and finally an equal battery life with the old NW-A45. My first couple of months with this device have been a blast. It is a great device. It has a great power input for listening with wired headphones.

Main differences between phone and this dedicated audio device for me have been a great and enough power for audio. My current phone hasn’t got audio jack and listening with usb-c adapter is painful – there is this white noise which drives me crazy. I have started to hate bluetooth and I just like to plug in and not worry about connection issues or poor audio.

I can again be in my own place with music.

This isn’t sponsored post but if Sony Corporation is interested… You can get in touch with my people so we arrange something.

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My EDC in 2024

Top row, left to right:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GM1 + 20mm f/1.7: For my purposes, the best small compact DSLR that takes micro four third lenses. I love this little thing and it fits in my jacket pocket so I take it everywhere.

Calendar: My pocket calendar for boring work meetings and personal stuff.

Punkt MP01: The dumbphone in this dumbphone EDC. In my country 2G networks still work, but the inevitable is coming in a few years. I love the aesthetics of this phone; it is like something from East Germany. All the positive effects of using a dumbphone are true, at least for me. I’ve been using this little thing for a few months now as my main phone.

A notepad: A little notepad. I like the detective notepad style of this one.

Bottom row from left to right

Boox Nova Air: An e-ink tablet. This has been one of the best electronic purchases for me and I read it almost every day. The convenience of getting books on it and the e-ink screen has increased the amount of books I read. I am now going through Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books (which are like Jack Reacher but fantasy).

Sony Walkman NW-A45: My mp3 player. It has an SD card slot, so all our music lives in this device. It sounds great and the battery lasts forever, even in this old thing. The main drawback is that it sucks as a podcast device – you can move podcast files to it from computer, but it doesn’t remember where you left off listening to a podcast. So you either have to listen to the whole episode or try to remember where you left off. If you’re looking for an mp3 player, get the new NW-A306.

Apple Earpods: I have tried a lot of wired and wireless headphones, but I always come back to these. They’re lightweight and sound great.

3DS: A Pikachu 3DS. This is the console I’ve played the most. It is a great device and it has been jailbroken so it has all the games.

Not shown in the image:

  • Bangle.js smart watch: An open source smart watch that doesn’t track you, but has all the features you need.
  • A wallet
  • keys
    etc.

My quest was to find a way to go through life trying to stay as private as possible. I have a smartphone but it has the Lineage OS in it and it lives on my desk as a 2FA device these days. The added plus has been all the positives of living the dumb phone life. Not having to look something up on the phone has reduced stress and made me more present. It hasn’t turned me into some kind of Superman – I can still procrastinate quite well without a smartphone.

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Videos on Rumble and Vimeo too

I am in a process uploading my videos to alternative video sites. YouTube is kind of in a flux and it doesn’t know what it wants to be. So just in case I’m uploading my videos to another site if YouTube wants to implode some day. So you can find my videos in Vimeo and in Rumble. I don’t know about Vimeo – I think there is a file limit and I still don’t know if I wanna pay. And I don’t really know about Rumble as well – I’ve always thought that it is a some right-wing lunacy site. If somebody knows a good video site give me a recommendation below. At this moment there are only a few recent videos but I’m uploading all of them eventually. 


Vimeo:

Rumble:

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So what you REALLY have to do if you want to stay incognito

This is really interesting exercise of what hoops you really have jump trough if you want to visit Disney Land and stay incognito by Janet Vertesi:

Data Free Disney

So how many of us would really go through all that. It is bizarre that we would have do all that work to visit a tourist resort but it is really scary that kind of surveillance is all around us and if we really want to keep our privacy we should do all that every day.

This is a little companion piece for this bigger story and it is a great read too:

Data-Free Disneyland

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